Lessons and success stories from a pilot project on climate change adaptation interventions in Kabe watershed, south Wollo, Ethiopia

ILRI Campus, Addis Ababa

11-12 February 2013

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Objectives

Discuss lessons from the project , and finally identify success stories that can be scaled up to similar areas

Photos


Agenda

Lessons and success stories from a pilot project on climate change adaptation interventions in Kabe watershed, south Wollo, Ethiopia 11-12 February 2013 Venue: ILRI Info-Center, Addis Ababa
Day 1 11 February 2013
Time	Subject	Presenters/ Task Facilitators
8:30 -09:00	Registration
9:00-9:15	Welcome	Alan Duncan, ILRI
9:15-9:45	Introductions and Expectations	Participants, Facilitator
9:45-10:00	Project overview	Elizabeth Migongo-Bake, UNEP
10:00-10:30	Project implementation - See presentation	Kindu Mekonnen / Alan Duncan / Beth Cullen, ILRI
10:30-11:00	Coffee break
11:00-11:10	Digital Story
11:10-12:30	Session 1: Watershed exploration Facilitated Group work to discuss project findings and generate / synthesize lessons. Focused around three interventions
	Socio-economic circumstances at Kabe watershed - presentation	Fikru Assefa (WU)
	Community perceptions on climate change at Kabe watershed - presentation	Yitbarek W/Hawariat (WU)
	Climate scenarios at Kabe watershed - presentation	Gashaw Bimrew (WU)
12:30-14:00	Lunch Break
1400 – 14:10	Digital Story
14:10-15:30	Session 2: Climate change adaption interventions Facilitated Group work to discuss project findings and generate / synthesize lessons. Focused around three interventions
	Crop + Homegarden/backyard interventions - crop presentation / homegarden & backyard presentation	Awol Mohammed & Agegnehu Mekonnen (SARC) and Seid (WU)
	Livestock (breed and feed) interventions - presentation	Wondmagegne (SARC) and Solomon Abreha (WU)
	Water + SWC and Forestry/Agroforestry interventions - water presentation / SWC agroforestry presentation	Asmare Wubet (SARC) and Muhamed Seid (WU)
15:30-16:00	Coffee Break
16:00-16:10	Digital Story
16:10-17:30	Session 3: Cross-cutting issues Facilitated Group work to discuss project findings and generate / synthesize lessons. Focused around three interventions
16:00-17:30	Watershed mapping - presentation	Dr. Bekele Abebe (Addis Ababa University)
	Capacity building (trainings, manuals and modules) - presentation	Derbew Kefyalew (ILRI) and Teklemariam Bekele (WU)
	Collective action issues at Kabe watershed - presentation	Derbew Kefyalew (ILRI) and Moges Meshesha (Wereda Office of Agriculture)
Day 2 12 February 2013
Time	Subject	Presenters/ Task Facilitators
09:00-9:15	Recap and reflection day 1	Facilitator
09:15-10:30	Reflections from the three workshop thematic areas	Kidane Georgis (EIAR), Fentahun Mengistu (ARARI), Assefa (President of WU)
10:30-11:00	Coffee Break
11:00-12:30	What, where and how to scale out/up lessons learnt from the watershed interventions + gaps identification during the project implementation	Facilitator
12:30-13:30	Lunch Break
13:30 -15:00 15:00-15:30	Synthesis Session Closing, way forward	Participants / Invited external people? Alan Duncan (ILRI)/ Iain Wright (ILRI) / Elizabeth Migongo-Bake (UNEP)
15:30-16:00	Coffee Break

Notes of the meeting

Expectations

Expectations:

• Listen to the progress and to know the future of the project
• Pilot project must be one of the successful projects on climate adaptation and I want to get a lesson from that
• Interesting project – a practical project more institutional
• Some practical aspects which is implementable
• Expect a lot for implementation
• Sharing of experience from other organizations
• Lesson learned from the project future faith of the project.
• Want to know the failures
• Want to know the technical interventions of the project
• What we achieved – challenges and success stories in detail
• To exchange effective activities in the water shed - best activities
• 2 things – vulnerability – how the project is contributing to food security – scaling up and scaling out

Introduction by Elizabeth Migongo-Bake (UNEP)

This program (covering 10 countries) is coming to an end but implementation delays led to extending it in June, and in late February in Ethiopia. The whole objective is to build resilience to climate stress through developing adaptive capacity, financial interventions and action in hotspot areas.

Three main outcomes: 1) best/worst/immediate cases of water scarcity mapped and solutions identified, 2) livelihoods and frequency of flood risks mapped and tools developed to implement preventative measures, 3) Work with African centres of excellence to build adaptation activities with communities.

Work packages: data analysis, comprehensive assessment, stocktaking of existing activities, policy support and capacity development, demo of climate change adaptation activities in Ethiopia and Uganda, awareness raising through communication and training.

Now this workshop is hoping to map successes and lessons.

Q&A:

• Looking at water resources, Ethiopia has evolved but has not yet done regional scaling. There is a lot of information in databases but not many activities beyond future scenario.
• Q: Will it be enough to have these pilot projects to collect the information required?
• A: Looking at Kabe lessons learned, a lot has been adapted and replicated elsewhere by Universities, research centres etc. The work is not finished.

Project implementation presentation (Kindu Mekonnen)

Interventions to adapt: improved crop varieties, home-garden activities, livestock, water, SWC, (agro-)forestry, trainings. workshops/meeting, field-days, blogs, wiki, digital stories, mapping and baseline studies.

Successes of the project: Strong partnership among partners, demand created for R&D, baseline information produced, capacity of some farmers and extension workers developed through training and site visit, potential technologies and practices identified and introduced to enable communities' capacity to adapt to CC.

R&D gaps for future consideration: Project implementation in terms of area coverage and involvement of farmers limited in scope (one sub-watershed only), technology coverage limited to entry points. Potential of backyards and feed resources received little research attention; R&D on income-generating activities, off-farm income, capacity building on researchers and market linkages.
Concluding remarks: the pilot project was limited but enabled some very good entry point work. The commitment and presence of partners should be capitalized on.

About digital stories...

As part of advocacy, we organized a digital story training workshop. The aim of the training was to develop 'digital stories', i.e. short films (2-3 min) made up of still photographs, video footage, audio and text. They are a dynamic way to bring about insights. The training course took place here and involved a field trip to Kabe watershed. These stories are a dynamic way to bring farmer stories to life... Three stories were developed.

Q&A:

• Q: Many challenges can't be addressed in one year. How do you deal with the duration of the project: Is there any extension? The challenges are big but the project has a mismatch.
• A: This is the final project. We are not sure about the continuity of the project - perhaps it depends on the outcomes in this workshop.
• Q: In most projects, the challenge is sustainability: how can we sustain and scale up the results?
• A: The objective of working with different partners is to address this challenge in regions and woredas. I hope we achieve some degree of sustainability.
• Q: There are a number of research areas identified for the next phase. What will happen with these?
• A: ??
• Q: What kind of technology is involved here? Would it be ok to call it a bio-history?
• A: Digital stories as a term is used globally and has become more popular recently because it's using a multimedia approach all with digital inputs. Text can be put onto the screen. It's a multimedia product. It can be used to document someone's life (a bio-history) or for a specific technical intervention, challenges we are facing. It can be adapted for different types of stories. It is meant to be used to access various audiences.
• Q: Re: constraints to innovation etc. How was the process to identify and implement innovations? Did you have a proven list of technologies or do you intend to evaluate these technologies?
• A: Most technologies are proven technologies, we're not assessing them.
• Q: How was the targeting of technologies for the landscape looking at upstream/downstream areas?
• A: We are working on upstream and downstream areas (e.g. rainwater harvesting, collective grazing management etc.)
• Q: There are 18 water points. What type of water? Ground/surface water? Is it accessible for different purposes? Was there any action-research on the development of these water points?
• A: We had consultants to work there. We don't have any indication on the potential of these water points, the number of people using these etc. so we need further investigation. These are natural water points e.g. like springs. The assessment was made to identify where the springs are, to measure the discharge of these springs and potential of these water points.

World cafe (1): socio economic circumstances at Kabe watershed, community perceptions on on climate change, climate scenarios at Kabe watershed

Presentations
Socioeconomic circumstances:
Conclusions and recommendations: enhance awareness of farmers about improved CC adaptation, expand water harvesting techniques, improve access to input and market to output.

Community perceptions on climate change at Kabe watershed:
Lessons and recommendations: local knowledge on CC adaptation is important. The multitude effects of CC in the area needs an integrated effort and cooperation at all levels.

Climate scenarios at Kabe watershed:
Lessons and recommendations: The anticipated rise of temperature and shift in the growing season requires adaptation (???)

Discussion

Socio-economic circumstances

Plenary summary:

• It's clear that this is a very food-insecure area, with highly degraded landscapes, subsistence agriculture, local consumption. It is these farmers that will be most at risk.
• About markets, there are market opportunities and potential for small scale irrigation but we need a strong assessment of demand for produce. Right now mismatch between input supplies for some vegs and lack of demand for those in the area. Clearer thinking required for market opportunities.
• Opportunities: We need a stronger demand assessment for opportunities to improve their options.

Full group notes:

• The study was focused on the Eastern Amhara region: the result can be used for planning at farm level (adjusting the cropping, crop choice, water harvesting)
• The finding that 'those areas that were dry will be drier and wet areas become wetter' is too general. However the findings are important and they need refining by down scaling.
• CMIP-5 is coarser than the GCM that have up to 5 km downscale already!
  • CMIP-5 is at an experimental level, why rely on it?
  • Careful selection of models required
• What is the reason for the diminishing of the bulg season?
• If the bulg merges with Kivemig (??) there will be large rains, causing water logging and low productivity
• Did you associate your result with that of changes on the ground?
  • Crop variety changing
  • Farm practice
• May reasons given to the decline of the bulg: Pressure differences on the Indian ocean, temperature difference on the source ocean.
• Since the humid part is very small, the change may not cause water logging
• More rain doesn't mean more production
• The predictions made on various climate variables such as: shifts on LGP, temperature, rainfall (the two seasons)
• To what extent the result influences the decision of farmers at ground level at the current state?
  • It gives some images based on the past events
• The findings are important inputs for policy making at macro-level

Community perceptions on climate change

Plenary summary:

• CC happened due to variations. Farmers are understanding this more and more.
• More work required about global CC processes and local experiences of this. Some activities at local level might be exacerbated by global level incidence.
• Lot more work needed on adaptation strategy and the causes of CC to tailor these strategies depending on the livelihood strategy e.g. different packages.
• Lessons to be learned from this pilot at hh level too, not just for farmers.
• Real need for improvement of different profiles in research and more collaboration between institutions. Need for more holistic approaches.

Full group notes:
Lessons learned

• Farmers recognize cc changes in temp + rainfall) understanding about the causes varies)
• In-depth research/follow-up is needed – one year is not sufficient
• Farmers receptive to technologies due to severity of situation
• More work to be done with farmers about causes of climate change – distinguish local + global process/cause effect.
• Work to be done on adaptation strategies (should be linked to causes) to reduce vulnerability to effects of local + global cc.
• Lessons learned – not just for farmers but other stakeholders too.
• Future work on CC needs to distinguish between climate change and climate variability
• Need to look at long enough time periods to assess changes – age categories, livelihood categories, gender also important as perceptions vary + impacts

What can be scaled and how

• Farmers participation in R/D by meeting and PRA
• Interdisciplinary research:
  • Collaboration between disciplines (social science + biophysical) + institutions
  • Inter-disciplinary research needed to understand differences in farmers perceptions of CC so ‘awareness raising’ work can be more effective
  • Holistic approach needed for adaptation strategies – need to ensure tailored options that taken into account different bio-physical conditions + livelihood strategies. (different ‘packages’ to be developed).
  • Crystalize lessons about approaches/technologies in pilot watershed + disseminate to range of stakeholders – not just farmers – cluster approach.
• Defined methodologies to capture variability between farmers + locations to be done at scale to distinguish between short (variability) term + long term changes.

Climate scenarios at Kabe watershed

Synthesis:

• Pertinent results at micro/macro level and can be scaled out in the Amhara region and in similar areas in the country.
• These results are also important as inputs for policies.
• Various climate variables (shifting of LGP, temperature and rainfall etc.) are shifting and require us to adjust cropping and various other agric practices.
• Are farmers effectively shifting their practices? There are experiences which need checking predictions against what's on the ground.
• More rain doesn't mean more production e.g. in Kabe watershed there's verti-soil and more rain will mean water logging. Production has to change.
• What makes this bulk rainy season decline? Influence of Indian Ocean. Merge between the 2 rainy seasons? There will likely be an extended rain season, which is important for scaling up results.

Full group notes:

• Adjust the cropping pattern at macro/micro level
• Can be scaled up in the eastern Amahara region
• Important for policy makers
• Lessons – shifting of LGP (length of growing period)
• Question: to what extent this will influence the thinking of the farmers – there are experiences it needs checking of predictions with what is on the ground
• Finding is important and found it aligned with the community perceptions found in the survey
• More rain doesn’t mean more production – there must be a cautious. Production has to change
• What makes this belg rainy season is declining what is the pressure behind reasons for this could be: Indian ocean etc….
• Merge of the two rainy seasons there will be an extended rain than heavy rain, scaling out of this is important

World cafe (2): Crop + home-garden/backyard interventions, livestock (breed and feed) interventions, Water + SWC and (agro-)forestry interventions

Discussion

Crop / homegarden/backyard interventions

Summary:
About homegardens and backyard interventions...

• Apple is performing very well in the water shed and can be promoted in the water shed
• Home garden 55 farmers participated the technologies were taken to the farmers directly. It is better to test it with small farmers and take it to a larger group
• Potato: no package approach
• Market approach is an issue for future consideration – cause they are not high value crops
• Potato seed: need to have seed source
• Preservation on processing potato should be given attention
• Poultry need to be considered in the
• Should be gender sensitive so that women can contribute

Scaling up

• Apple there is a lot of experience and ecology is also be promoted
• Carrot
• Potato is also a potential crop

How:

• Organize visits
• Different communication approaches

About Crops:
Lesson is: Seed exchange system informal/formal good to disseminate the varieties in a short period of time
Forage:Management
Crops: scaling up……

• Bread wheat (Dinknesh) – can be promoted in the water shed
• Need a package approach for this as well

How:

• Need to cover large area and involve many farmers in the water shed and beyond
• We need a package approach
• Markets and value chain approaches are necessary for farmer incentives
• Potato seeds - if the area is suited for potatoes, we need to have seeds
• Preservation process is ??
• What can be scaled up:
  • Carrots, potatoes,
• How to scale up?
  • Visits

Full group notes:
Lessons learned

• Research issues on:
  • Root not on garlic
  • Late blight on potato
  • Further follow up on apple
  • Technology testing should be an initial step before taking to farmers
  • Package approach – seed owners
  • Market linkage / value chain system – seeds
  • Challenge on potato is seed source
  • Preservation/processing – potato
  • Other options:
    • Poultry
    • Fruit trees
    • Temperate fruit plum
    • Gender sensitive
    • Awareness creation is needed
    • Sustainable source of planting materials

Points on scaling up + how:

• Apple with full package
• Carrot with improved management
• Potato

How to scale up

• Visit
• Communication
• Potato seed source – using seed store at Woreillu

Crop:
Lessons

• Introduced varieties performed well
• Checkolate spot on fababean – needs further study
• Seed exchange
  • o Using farmers as seed source (formal agreement)
  • o Informed seed exchange system

Forage

• Management needs attention

Scaling up:

• Adie from field pea – 3.5 ton/h – 1 pod seed
• Food barley (establish) – farmer preferred
• Bread wheat, Dinkinesh – early maturing + high yield, yellow rust resistant (better than Kubasa)
• Package approach
• Cluster system
• Area coverage + farmer involvement

Livestock (breed and feed) interventions

Summary:
Livestock (breed and feed) interventions

• Breeds: farmers need continuous M&E follow up to reduce free… system
• Irrigation of local – it has to be done side by side. Good merits of the local are there.
• Package: breed and feeds are included. It should include health and other factors of animal production
• Success story: to be demonstrated to farmers need to be communicated to farmers rather than just telling the farmers

Scaling up

• Massive awareness creation within the community
• Increasing the grazing land
• Creating market awareness with livestock products and feeds development – it should be market oriented approach
• Adequate resource allocation

Full group notes:
Group 1
Objectives:

• Improve pre-winning performance
• Climate adaption
• Feed increase

Lessons: Feed/Forage interventions

• Establishment of forages from seedlings has higher performance compared to direct sowing
• Increase in soil cover facilities carbon sequestration
• Improved forages with better digestibility enhanced fast growth of the animals

Animal breed

• Birth weight
• Weaning weight
• Farmers need continuous training for improved breeding
  • Village based breeding
  • Reluctance to avoid local rams
    • Eradication of local rams: dangerous, not eradicate

Scaling up:

• Crops

Group 2
Challenges: Land shortages, so planted on SWC structures
Lessons

• Why doesn’t the farmers allocate land for fodder? Not feasible?
• Why good land for crop and bad land for feed

Answer:

• Priority to crop, availability of grazing land for small ruminants. Sheep is an alternative not a priority This is a general problem

Scaling out

• Market awareness is increasing however so breed and feed improvement is a must

Market:

• Integration of crop + livestock (breed + input) supply – future research strategy for scaling out and up
• Strict follow up of M&E training
• Adequate resource allocation

Create:

• Market for fodder seeds supply
• Demonstration of best practices
• Part of Amhara priorities livestock

Group 3

• Maintaining potential local rams for breeding while using controlled breeding
• Why only sheep? Why breeding only?
• Sheep dominant – water shed
• Success story of breeding works
• Feed + breed are the major factors
• Health package is there from woreda Ministry of Agriculture (MoA)
• Why need for allocating land for feed? Problem of inter cropping: SWC, backyard feeding survival rate at stake if free grazing is not controlled
  • o Survival is better on SWC than grazing land

Scaling out:

• Awareness creation for controlled grazing planting systems/strategies
• Enrichment of grazing land pasture
• Fencing to control wild life
• Package + integrated approach (feed/breed, health practices)
• Experience sharing visits
• Prioritizing activities (free grazing fodder development)

Water + SWC and forestry/agro-forestry interventions

Synthesis:

• Species sites matching is important
• Draw experience for past project and use database
• Documentation + experience sharing
• Involve communities
• M& E of trees
• Longer term research is needed
• Involve communities and DA’s
• Policy development
• Method: participatory land use planning
• Genuine ownership needs to be there
• Indiscriminate use of soil/water usage
• Avoid blanket approach using tools Goblet tools developed by ILRI/IWMI and water game
• Weather component
• Lack of cost/benefit analysis
• Scaling up: cost/benefit conducted within a period
• Plantation of eucalyptus has an impact – not based on study just based on hypothesis
• Long term hydrological …. Is important by the University – by training the local partners
• Use standard checking …….
• The best result will be taken up.
• Necessary to integrate water with other components of intervention
• Create package of technology through inter-disciplinary approaches

Full group notes:

Lessons learned	Scaling?	How?
Species site matching is important	Draw on experience from past projects Use of database (problematic) localized?	Documentation + experience sharing Research to produce localized database
Longer term M&E of trees required esp. around survival rates	Longer terms research needed, multidisciplinary	Involve communities + DAs
Free grazing is problematic for survival of seedlings linked to lack of land use plan	Policy development needed - political issue	Participatory land planning, supported by by-laws
Genuine ownership to be established	Empowerment of local communities	By-law development
Indiscriminate use of SWC practices - better targeting needed	Avoid blanket approaches	Use of tools such as Goblet tool, Happy Strategies, Wat-a-game from NBDC
Need for trees that meet short term + long term needs of farmer livelihoods + environment	Analysis of species that can meet both needs e.g. indigenous species take time, need to meet immediate livelihood requirements	Farmer needs assessment
Future projects to consider planting time, free grazing + soil moisture on survival rates	Data to be collected from this and other projects	Produce synthesized lessons to be shared with other areas
Need to integrate interventions - some only on private lands, some communal	To be considered in future/ongoing projects
Water focused interventions
Introducing d/t water have strong structure (no cost - benefit analysis)	Cost benefit analysis to be conducted over the follow up period (return period assessment)	Use data from cost-benefit analysis to see the trajectory from d/t farmers
Plantation of eucalyptus has an impact on groundwater level	By studying complementarity and its impact	Limiting to appropriate niche
Long term hydrological monitoring is important to gauge the groundwater level changes	By the UNV through conducting cost benefit analysis By training local people on how to do this	Budget resources is necessary
Recommendations for each type of intervention according to bio physical and socio-economic conditions	Synthesis of data / information	Produce guidelines and manuals
(Standard check) Control is important to contrast practices like d/t water harvest structures	The best result would be taken up	Analyzing the results of the study
Necessary to integrate the water efforts with other activities (backyard forage/vegetables)	Create a technology package through interdisciplinary approach and/or institutional approach	By teaming up d/t divisions / institutions (partnerships)

World cafe (3): Watershed mapping, capacity building, collective action issues at Kabe watershed

Discussion

Watershed mapping

Synthesis:

• Lessons learned:

Mapping – cheap technologies are there – problem is when it comes to climate prediction
Few stations – is a challenge
Recommendation:

• Let’s have bigger watersheds to increase the accuracy
• Let’s increase the stations if possible

Lesson:

• Use of aster for populations – used in Somalia region – can be scaled up
• Livestock population is not easy to capture
• Eucalyptus is an issue in the water shed – what can we do

Recommendation

• The impact of eucalyptus needs to be studied
• There are sites where we can plant eucalyptus - as it is an income for the farmers

Full group notes:
Lessons:

• Meteorological data scarcity as a challenge
• Small size of the area (challenge) – prediction
• Aster Sat. image cost effective (population mapping, land use etc.) rather than census
• Livestock population not easy to capture with Satellite image.

What can be scaled up?

• Climate forecasting
• Meteorological station establishment
• Large watershed that fits to existing Satellite image resolutions/Meteorological data
• Large area for variability capture.
• 
  

How:

• Is area an issue when GIS can handle minor details on resource? Cost
• Soil and water as a resource :
  • eucalyptus impact on water needs a study
  • Select sites for eucalyptus planting, because farmers need it.

Capacity building

Synthesis:

• Lessons learned:
  • Increased initiation after the intervention
  • Needs assessment before training – need also post training assessment
  • Need to address institutional capacity
  • Documentation needs – training needs to be recorded before intervention
  • Returns of the capacity building are not as expected
• Scaled up
  • More practical training needed
  • Involvement of all stakeholders – at a zonal level
  • To make it sustainable we need to make it TOT training
• How:
• Experience sharing and visits
• Identifying gaps and training – similar level training and making it localized to the area and make it simple

Full group notes:

Lessons learned

• Increased initiation to participate in different technological adoption in the watershed
• Need assessment from farmers, DA’s (extension workers)
• Post training assessment and per-assessment (before training) should be carried out
• Addressing institutional capacity
• Documentation (day-to-day) activities + digital video
• Return of capacity building
• Sustainability

What can be scaled?

• More practical trainings are needed than theoretical
• Institutional capacity building integrated with human capacity building
• Involvement of all stakeholders on preparation of training materials (environmental protection and agricultural offices)
• Sustainability: individuals (TOT) training of trainers

How?

• Experience sharing
• Visit
• Interactive and participatory
• GAP (similar level of trainees, using local language/simplified)

Collective action issues at Kabe watershed

Synthesis:

• Free grazing issue was discussed. Some of the underlined issues biomass and grass growing issues with equity landless farmers and farmers with no livestock

Full group notes:
Process:

• Community gathering
  • Issues of identification
  • Awareness creation
  • Selling benefits of grazing enclosures
• By-law development – only for livestock exclusion but not about use
  • Penalties
  • Warning1
  • Warning 2
  • Birr fine
• Guards paid by food security
• Cut and carry – hh partitioning

Issues:

• Everyone happy
• What about landless? – share-ploughing arrangements
• Different tenure arrangements
• Mode of “convincing” farmers
• Transport of feed to homestead
• Benefits can be shared also with landless and those without livestock
• Zero grazing requires continuous adequate feed supply
• Enrichment with improved forages – desho, trees
• At start of enclosure development short-term feed shortage is a problem
• Farmers have reduced livestock numbers
• Dairy appropriate

Recap and reflection day 1:

Dr. Kidane:

• The project is timely and relevant because it has watershed approach which integrates agriculture with natural resource management.
• It is the government's policy as well
• It has a climate change perspective which is key issue in that specific areas
• Reflect on crop-garden:
  • Cereal is emphasized in this area. This project has identified the problem and has horticulture crops which is very important. All the technologies available is available
  • Crop aspect: not only variety approach but management practices are also included which is very good
  • Gaps I have observed:
    • Wheat, apple which much research is not done.
    • Gap is the availability of the see at a required time
  • ATA has a system which we have to make use of
  • Planting material has to be available
  • In crop - we have to have drought and disease resistant crops there are varieties which can be imported
  • Livestock/breed and feed
    • Feed is a major constraint nationally and regionally
    • Forage species are there which are developed by CG centres and others
    • With the breeds - local breeds we have to feed them and control the diseases even without breeding programs
    • We can introduce breeds for sheep and goats which USAID has introduced
    • Project has identified the over grazing problem - we have to stop free grazing and area enclosure is important
    • There are available technologies which we can use
  • Water conservation gaps:
    • Tree species - we have to have site specific
    • Argo-forestry is good and your approach is good. We need more research on ago-forestry
  • Way foreword:
    • We have to go into diversification and integration.
    • Seed system has to be improved
    • Soil and water conservation needs more research
      
      

Dr Teklu: Additional perspectives:

• Given us some of us who have not been in the area an in-sight to the project
• Discussions were fairly categorized into assessment of the problem - which they have shown the constraint and evidences of climate change
• The current climate is not favorable cause the area is dry and rainfall is not reliable and the intervention that have been on the ground was on the current land and climate degradation situation
• There is high level of poverty and vulnerability and there is lack of awareness.
• People notice that there is a rainfall distribution is not as it was.
• Lack of suitable technologies was mentioned. Many of the technical interventions were not there until the project started working on the area
• crop related intervention - am not sure about whether the management of the crop was comprehensive. Some varieties were not previously tested in the area.
• Potato: the yield of potato was not high even with improved variety and it was given to 50 farmers without testing. Whenever we go for scaling up we need to try it on few farmers and scale it up if it works
• Livestock: feed and breed intervention. The breed could do under good feed condition
• It is not only feed and breed that helps in productivity disease should be considered
• Crop and Livestock we need to make a package than a single technology approach
• Interventions should be interactive
• Forage: in soil and water conservation we have seen a contrasting example.
• For forage success was low and water conservation was successful and they should be linked
• Water issues: potential of hand..... it is only one year.
• We cannot reach at a conclusion because it has only been a year.
• The monitoring and study should continue to arrive at a solid conclusion
• there are shallow .... in the area......rainfall is normal runoff is reduced... implying that water is recharging.This linkage should be studied further in order to replicate to the other areas.
• Soil and water conservation: very appealing the way it is tried is very good
• capacity building: focus has to be given on to stakeholders, extension and farmers
• The capacity building given was basically theory based in the future trainings need to be practical and demonstration on what is on the ground.

Dr. Fantanun

• I have seen action oriented research
• Linkage and partnership that made all this possible. The system approach
• Kabi is connected horizontally and vertically
• Mapping out by Addis Ababa University
• Departure points for our intervention
• The opportunities should be part of this which I haven't seen
• Need more of a holistic approach including opportunities and it should be complete in terms of social, political, ecological...... etc.
• Much has been done
• PRA approach I dint hear anything about it
• It has to be comprehensive to make a departure point
• Perception part: what the partners think is described well. We need to have per-hand indicators and information and need to trigger farmers
• We need to have some proxiis
• Inter-marrying the science with the traditional approach
• how should the farming system continue should be clearly indicated
• Climate change is happening how do we connect it to the decision that is going to be made in the future and it has to be linked with the farmers perceptions.
• Intervention part: complete packaging lacks
• Farmer's organizations I didn't hear anything about it.... or government interventions..... which are farmer empowerment tools.
• Scaling up activity within the crop system - seed system is very serious. Potato within Kabi...... major issue is making inputs available
• Livestock system: link small ruminant is important for climate change has been seen. Sustainability issue is there. The farmers need to continue to be breeders and we need to have cooperatives to make it sustainable.
• Free grazing system can't be implemented unless otherwise we make feed available which is enough.
• in the home gardens - linking it with water is important
• Conservation and forestry - agro-foresty shouldn't be limited to trees and vegetable..... we can have fruits
• On collective action: a common land has been distributed to the farmers - they have decided to communally administrated. care has to be taken to scale up
• Very good institutional integration - all these have to be planned in one.
• This project has to continue. We have raised the expectation of the farmers. We have to continue it with the normal system
• Linkage is exemplary and needs to be strengthened.

Dr. Belay

• Extension that follows the water shed approach was assignment has been given to the MoA (Ministry of Agriculture)
• National guideline has been developed from different projects and it has been approved by MoA
• I was looking to what extent we have been using the guideline and should we improve the guideline and policy
• This project is a one year initiative but we have seen different intervention
• The approach was well understood
• The linkage and partnerships was very hard to get at first but now there is good progress

Gaps:

• Water shed should be linked to markets - producing for the sake of producing will discourage the farmer. For e.g carrot, potato where they could be sold should be indicated.
• Link our products to market like Addis, Dessie and Djibouti.

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Success factors

• Partnership
• Capacity building

How to scale up:

• Model practice visits/exposure
• Facilitation of farmer-to farmer experience exchange - trues
• Apply participatory extension
• Facilitation of timely and adequate supply of inputs
• Facilitation of access to credit
• Improve access to information (market, climate, inputs, best practices)
• Introducing farmers group
• Establishing partnerships (with NGO's and private organizations)
• Capacity building (training, audiovisual skill development)
• Creating innovation platform (University, research, development)
• Partnership – participatory approach to engage all partners is the base for this success
• Other new partners directly and indirectly linked from the grass root level
• Technological availability: great deal for the success of this project
• Diversification and accessibility of technologies
• Create tailor made adoption technologies
• Awareness creation at woreda level
• Community organization – capacity building of local partners –
• Education of the farmers on climate change
• Incorporating practical sessions in capacity building provision of training materials and including all the partners during the training
• Community mobilization – is important
• Awareness creation of the community
• Mulch-disciplinary programs – for strengthens horizontally and vertically

Question

Alan:

• What we see is summarized success factors though partnerships and community mobilization and training and capacity building. Do you see them being taken up by other woredas after this project phases out
• Expertise and funds can be brought from the international organizations and the national

Simon

• Do you need international organizations to assist you with this?

Elizabeth:

• I miss key super successes and innervation that can be replicated and up-scaled by. Is this something that can be done by other institutions? Horizontal strengthening is not there. Key areas which have been super interventions are missing. Pull those out if you can
• What lessons have we pulled out of this project
• If there are positive lessons how can the government take this as an indicator on how you could improve in relation to climate change the well-being of climate change
• Using the lessons we have learned here to implement something to create greater impacts in other areas

Answer:

• Partnership, technology availability…. Are the major successes. How this can be scaled up other organization: the woreda all the partners would work together and would continue their partnership. Even they can incorporate additional partners who work on the same program at regional level
• Technology availability: the work is there. It is just to push further by diversifying technologies and making it available. Woreda and research agents can take it further.
• Capacity building issues: training manuals can serve as a base for different institutions which helps in scaling up.
• Community mobilization is already practiced by the government. We need to continue this for natural resources including water
• Multidisciplinary program: we have the communities, universities and research institutions we have to work closely together.

Final word (Alan)

There is an argument – may be a phase two to properly embed it.

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Super 'killer' interventions:

• intensification is important
• Different varieties of apple
• Integration is important
• Participatory intervention based on the potential of the land you can combine production
• The farmers should benefit from this
• Interventions: good planning and documentation is important
• Focusing on packages of technologies
• Practices and management practices - crop rotation
• Creating enabling environment which is very hard to find when you go to the field

Scaling up approaches:

• Experience exchange visits for farmers
• Farmer to farmer experience
• Extension to farmer
• Apply participatory extension -give them the idea and farmers can take what they want
• Market information - inform farmers
• Introducing farmers group research
• Facilitate not only the technical aspect but the financial aspect as well
• Capacity building is important and crating innovation platform is also important

Question:

Elizabeth

• Very positive in terms
• Enabling environment is important to move foreword
• Value chain component was not seen in terms of moving this project
• How do we avoid wastage and it is part of the green economy

Simon:

• Very encouraging
• Shopping lists - which one of those if a donor comes along and asks which will be the top three and could we agree on that

Alan:

• Intervention that works in one place might not work in another place because of many factors
• Joint planning for implementation - packages of technologies you need to think about whole system.
• Access to inputs to credit
• Output markets has not been given much attention
• Innovation platforms that could be built upon

Group

• Partnership is important. One organization cannot have everything
• Farmer groups and cooperatives - Seed production who will have a promised market are things we want to be done in the future
• Constraint is always there. It can also be cultural so we need facilitation work by anthropologists

Elizabeth

• What i miss is identification of gaps.
• Sheep breeding and crops - documentation
• The science that could be pulled out of this processes of interventions

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Next phase of the project

Why do we need to extend the project:

• One year is too short to see the impacts
• Severity of the problem
• Farmer's demand/interest/expectations
• Not all the sub-watersheds were addressed
• Not full technology options intervened
• More research need - basic/systems - market, CB, cost and emerging issues
• Policy makers expect lessons from the pilot project for in-depth analysis
• Although we have harvested good results the time is short to see greater impact to develop the site
• The sub-water sheds have been rich by our interventions with limited interventions
• More research is needed and several emerging issues

2nd phase components

• Water-centered
• Livestock-led, diversified - apple, aggro-forestry: looking to the potential area it should be livestock led but apple can be included and ago-forestry products.
• Capacity building should be a big component of the project
• Off-farm activities and on-farm activities should be included

Approach:

• Value chain:the best approach to address supply and demand side

Institutional:

• Stakeholder's forum
• Partnership between government and universities and research organizations

Duration:

• Not less than five years

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Feedback from Simon, Alan and Elizabeth

• Simon: Systems approach developed value chains - my worry is more case study.

Elizabeth:

• We should be looking something bigger. not the vulnerability of the community. The whole water sheds should be seen
• Continuing what has not been achieved and talking to the government and ministries where we can do something similar
• The focus on livestock - a weakness for me. We need the value of livestock in food security.
• Look at the local knowledge
• Work on the existing breeds not only new breeds
• Climate mapping didn't come out which shows the climate change - what can you do best where since this is a climate adaptation project.
• If you visit the current land use systems where will be the livestock production area and crop production area
• Value chain- green economy lands - efficient use of natural resources

Dr. Fantahun:

• Scale up cannot be separated from intervention - which can go beyond the water sheds
• Scaling up the success stories will be checking what is missing
• Some interventions need to be included
• Scaling up - we have studies from IWMI from one region to a country.
• Climate scenario is very important - what will be the scenario in the coming 10 or 20 years...
• Livestock - small ruminant are best adaptive for climate change
• Institutional innovation and the digital story can be taken

Alan:

• There were immediate interventions on the ground which has developed a lot of energy.
• The first draft can be drafted by the existing consortium

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Looking back and looking foreword and take away messages:

• Facilitation was very good
• Participants are eager share their experiences
• The project has achieved remarkable achievements and expect better achievement if this project is taken to the next phases

• Sirinka - his first time to participate - it is participatory and met so many senior scientist
• I learned especially when the institution are practically integration

• Very timely and relevant - and integrated NRM and agriculture
• Important from policy perspective
• Networking research and university are there and linking with ILRI too

• Regional level policy makers - are there met 3 or 4 people here and food security and bureau of agriculture who are the ones that play a very big role to change policy - and have looked at what can be taken up
• Participates are looking beyond the sub-water shed. They are looking at a higher vision

• Delighted by the facilitation - which is smart and enables to extract more information
• Obsessed by the phase out of the project to see the impact of the project on the natural resource part particularly
• Partnership is good but would like to see extension of the project
• Learned a lot from the participants - it is by itself for the jujir to take

• Very impressive within one year because of the integration of the stakeholders
• The regional government is also concerned with integration of water shed government
• The people of the Amhara region are ready for change.... they are conserving the soil but physical structure should be combined with biological measures.... like seeds and technologies even in the down stream which needs funds
• The policy of the country is very conducive for natural resource conservation.
• So having this as a learning site it can be scaling up into other areas.
• Government is in a position to scale up this good practice

• Research and development can work together. We have a number of development programs but we don't have research and we use our university
• Interventions are successful
• We are thinking on how to continue

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Closing and way forward

Dr. Fantahun

• We have harvested success in a very short period of time
• Partnership: in amhara region, the seven university and 8 research organizations have MoU to work together
• The partnership is very encouraging
• We are able to imitate the farmer
• A lot needs to be made: we also learn a lot from the water shed. This is just a sign of success but we need to intervene more to bring about bigger success.
• Our research system has good relationship with the CG centres and we have good relationship and this needs to strengthen
• We have to be able to create a model that can be scaled up in other regions which can be achieved within the coming years. UNEP has to contribute and CG and government need to contribute. We need a collaborative partnership
• Facilitation was very good.
• Digital story - everybody has stories with 5 minutes you can communicate very well.
• World cafe we learned a lot

Simon

• 20 research scientists working for IWMI and one of the projects is climate change.
• We have a project looking at Eco-system services - like Foregra - is one of our sites for Nile Basin Development Challenge
• CG system is reforming and water land and Eco-systems
• I would like you to judge us as partners not donors

Gaps:

• The message of livelihoods and poverty alleviation livelihood diversification and climate adaptation
• Cost benefits - who is befitting and how much
• Lots of evidence has been produced which needs to be communicated to implementers, donors and NGO's
• Which communities should we work with - there needs to be a process
• Learning by doing is very important which you have been doing in this project
• Appreciate the partnership we have with ARARI
• How come we work with Oromiya better
• If you were to prepare a concept and we'll try to identify a donor.
• We need to pass the capacity to the Ethiopians

Elizabeth:

• Wonderful partnership at all levels where everybody did what they could and this is what we need to move on
• Enabling environment is important
• UNEP is a policy body but we make policy - we work hard to make sure that the policy that we recommend can be useful
• What is the scientific basis of this project and we need to integrate science for the second phase
• The notion of making making Kabe a learning centre is very important and I see that already as a positive move.
• This project is linked to processes but might needs supports and finances and we need to look at a bigger water shed
• Food security is very important in relation to climate change and vulnerability which can be sell-able to the bigger donors
• Finishing components which have not been done on the first phase
• There will be a Nile basin workshop - review - which is assessment and collecting information -share with the stakeholders there
• Build upon green economy - which means includes avoiding wastage - sustainable development and environment. Wastage of natural resources and wastage to food. Is there recycling ..... we need to work on that from credit to market and shelf life of the products they produce.
• Link to a food and water - this project falls on the blue Nile, if we develop a second phase - it would be good to see how this work contributed to the region.
• There is this move of one country as one UN not to duplicate and this is a chance and each donor will have a component to make it big.

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